Center of it all
Rangers have bigger hole up the middle after Stepan deal
Time and again it happened to the Rangers in the postseason. Their centers were outplayed by their counterparts, resulting in the Blueshirts coming up short of the ultimate prize.
Now that pseudo-weakness down the middle has become even more depleted as general manager Jeff Gorton made a fastidious move last weekend in trading away integral pivot Derek Stepan. The deal with the Coyotes brought back the No. 7-overall pick, which Gorton used on Swedish center Lias Andersson, as well as young defenseman Anthony DeAngelo.
Maybe more importantly, it cleared Stepan’s $6.5 million annual salary-cap hit for the next four years, giving Gorton far more flexibility going forward, especially with the trade market currently bubbling over and free agency beginning Saturday.
“Sometimes your phone doesn’t ring when you’re capped out, and now when you have a lot of cap room, your phone rings,” Gorton said after Day 2 of the draft Saturday afternoon in Chicago’s United Center. “It’s flexibility that we have, it’s opportunities that we have to make our team better. We can listen to some things that maybe we couldn’t have listened to a few days ago.”
The most critical evaluation Gorton might have to make is internally with the centers he does have in Kevin Hayes and Mika Zibanejad. Hayes, 25, has one more year at $2.6 million before becoming a restricted free agent with arbitration rights, while Zibanejad, 24, is currently a restricted free agent with arbitration rights looking for a raise off his previous $2.625 annual hit. Gorton doesn’t seem to be pushing it with Zibanejad, waiting to see how the rest of the market pans out before committing to a deal he might regret.
“We want to make a good deal,” Gorton said. “It could be short-term, it could be long-term. We’re wide open. I’ve had conversations with [his agents], I think we’ll see how the market plays out a little bit and then we’ll go from there.”
With dependable fourth-line center Oscar Lindberg getting taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft, the question is who will fill these slots down the middle. And, as Gorton pointed out, this has been an organization that had not predicated its recent success on big-name high-end talent.
“Our success has been through depth in the organization,” Gorton said. “We haven’t had [Sidney] Crosby or [Evgeni] Malkin or [Jonathan] Toews or one of these guys, because we’re not picking in the top. Some of these [other general managers] have had some lucky picks here.”
There is the option to move J.T. Miller back to the middle, but it seems coach Alain Vigneault likes him playing a more straightahead game on the wall. Even a player such as Marek Hrivik, who has come up and played center, is likely leaving as an unrestricted free agent. Sunday was the deadline to extend qualifying offers to restricted free agents, and the Rangers did not give offers to forward Brandon Pirri, defenseman Adam Clendening, or goalie Mackenzie Skapski. They are all now free to sign elsewhere.
Forward Nicklas Jensen did get a qualifying offer after a solid year at AHL Hartford, where he had 32 goals and 55 points in 70 games. He also played seven games with the Rangers.